The Obamas adopted a new Democratic motto Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago: “When they go low, we go back. Hard.”
Former First Lady Michelle Obama, her husband Barack and dozens of DNC speakers took her 2016 aphorism — “When they go low, we go high” — and adapted it for meaner, leaner times.
In his speech, former President Obama called former President Trump a “78-year-old billionaire who hasn’t stopped whining about his problems since he stepped off his golden escalator nine years ago.”
He listed the Republican candidate’s “continuous stream of complaints and grievances,” which have only gotten worse now that he’s “afraid of losing to Kamala.”
Read more: Pro-Palestinian Democrats puzzled at DNC: Joy over Harris, but despair over Gaza
“There are the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd size…” Obama said, pausing and holding his hands close together, indicating something small in size.
The crowd erupted in laughter. MAGA clutched his pearls. Political pundits and satirists jumped on memes and posts like “Stormy Knows.”
The party that chose decency and occasional piety over pettiness in its fight against Trump in 2016 and 2020 has abruptly changed course and now calls itself a merry warrior, ready and willing to fight fire with fire. The Obamas were the torch of choice on Day 2.
On Tuesday, the traditionally reserved Barack Obama slammed more Trump in a single speech than he has in a decade. “We don’t need four more years of bluster, bungling and chaos. We’ve seen that movie before, and we all know the next one is usually worse,” he said.
As the DNC has shown, Democrats have no intention of following a turn-the-other-cheek pattern either.
Read more: Harris has introduced a new ‘F’ word for Democrats: Fun
Michelle Obama, who preceded her husband on stage, took the stage and delivered a series of pointed remarks about the man who spent the early part of his political career spreading birth-related lies about Barack, suggesting that Barack was born abroad and therefore ineligible for the presidency.
“I want to know who’s going to tell him that the job he’s looking for right now might be one of those ‘black jobs,’” the former first lady joked, referring to Trump’s repeated claims that illegal immigrants were taking “black jobs.”
She also made a point of drawing contrasts of class and opportunity between Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump. “Most of us will never have the grace to fail forward,” she said, referring to Trump’s wealthy family line. “We will never benefit from the positive action of generational wealth.”
“If we let a company go bankrupt, or choke on a crisis, we don’t get a second, third or fourth chance. If things don’t go our way, we don’t have the luxury of whining or cheating to get ahead,” she said. “We can’t change the rules, so we always win.”
But Democrats changed the direction of Trump’s hourly insults, turning their sights back on the former president, hoping to give politics a new twist.
At the opening night of the DNC on Monday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was greeted by a raucous crowd with a prolonged standing ovation. Clinton ran against Trump in 2016, winning the popular vote but losing in the Electoral College. Along the way, she endured some of the earliest and worst insults of the MAGA world, with Trump calling her a “nasty woman” and implying she was dishonest with the nickname “Crooked Hillary.”
Read more: Ali: What is so hard for Trump to understand about his mixed race?
In her speech, Clinton contrasted Harris’ career milestones as a 2024 attorney with Trump’s legal troubles. “Donald Trump fell asleep at his own trial,” Clinton said. “When he woke up, he had made his own kind of history: the first person to run for president with 34 felony convictions.” The crowd erupted in chants of “Lock Him Up!” Clinton couldn’t help but laugh.
Call it karmic wash, payback or just plain politics, but the Dems’ boomerang approach appears to be working. Harris was polling higher than President Biden before he dropped out of the race last month, and the party finally appears to be having some fun.
On Wednesday night, the DNC will hear from VP candidate Tim Walz, a genial figure who has played a leading role in turning Trump’s attacks against him. He has used the word “weird” better than anyone ever thought possible in an age of trolls, drag and viral insults.
In the Republican spirit of amplifying unverified information from unreliable corners of the Internet, Walz referenced the absurd rumor about Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance having had sexual relations with a bank.
“I’ve got to tell you, I can’t wait to debate this guy,” Walz said during a speech earlier this month at a rally at Temple University in Philadelphia. “If he’s willing to get off the bench and show up.”
The DNC’s new slogan: They go low, we go hard.
Get the LA Times Politics newsletter. In-depth insights into law, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond, delivered to your inbox three times a week.
This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
